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Realistic Exercise Goals

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A key element to weight loss is exercise. It’s a lesson I learned early on in my journey to a better body. I can make all the changes I want to my eating habits; however, unless I add exercise, it won’t do me much good. So I decided that this is the year, the month, the week, to begin exercising.

If you are anything like me, then you usually start off all gung-ho, ready to make changes, and then a week later you lose the motivation. I find that so frustrating about myself! However, I think I discovered the real problem. I have never been realistic about my exercise goals.

Think about it. You make a decision to start exercising and then what? We run out there and get an expensive gym membership or go buy an expensive piece of equipment. Or we may decide to walk two miles a day. Sometimes I think we set goals that are just completely unrealistic. We also expect instant results, however, it takes time when first starting out.

So this year I determined to go about establishing an exercise routine with more attainable goals. If I go into this too fast I know I will quickly lose steam. This way I can slowly build up an exercise routine and hopefully, stick with it.

My choice of exercise is the treadmill. I’ve had it for several years, but most of the time it collects dust in the basement. I have been on and off that thing numerous times over these past few years. At some point I might join a gym or buy another piece of equipment, but until I have actually made exercise a regular habit, I will stick with the treadmill. No sense wasting money if I cannot make exercising a daily part of my routine.

This week I set a goal: Walk on my treadmill at least 15 minutes per day, five days per week. This is completely doable. First of all, I know that it is totally unrealistic for me to walk every single day. However, by committing to just 15 minutes a day, I can definitely do this five days per week. I think setting a goal of 15 minutes is realistic. I can easily carve out 15 minutes of my day for walking. Once I get through this week, I will be ready for the next goal.

Next week my goal is to increase my time to 20 minutes, 5 days per week. Each week I plan on making slight changes in the duration or rate of my walking. These will be slight changes that won’t shock my body so much that I give up.

Hopefully, yuu will be encouraged to begin an exercise routine too. Just remember to be realistic. Start small and amend your routine with each success.

About Stephanie Romero

Stephanie Romero is a professional blogger for Families and full-time web content writer. She is the author and instructor of an online course, "Recovery from Abuse," which is currently being used in a prison as part of a character-based program.
She has been married to her husband Dan for 21 years and is the mother of two teenage children who live at home and one who is serving in the Air Force.